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<\/a><\/p>\nNational Maintenance Craft officers are urging locals to prepare to defend proper staffing.<\/p>\n
The Jan. 22 notification is the latest in a protracted battle that has raged since 2001, when the USPS sought to make extensive changes to the handbook. In 2006, Arbitrator Shyam Das sustained the union\u2019s grievance and directed the Postal Service to reinstate the previous version of the MS-47 Handbook, which was issued in 1983<\/p>\n
The Jan. 22 notice informed the APWU of changes to the handbook based on a pilot program that was initiated a year earlier in three locations \u2014 Salt Lake City, UT; Columbus, OH, and Zanesville, OH. The trial program was devised by ManageMen, a USPS consulting group, and has been referred to by various names, including OS-1 or Team Cleaning.<\/p>\n
The Postal Service initially advised the APWU that the pilot would test new methods, equipment and supplies, with the expectation that the program would result in a cleaner, healthier work site; improve efficiency due to better supply management, and improve esprit de corps amongst our custodial ranks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese all seem to be commendable goals, which do not, on the surface, target staffing levels or employees,\u201d Raymer said. The Postal Service also provided assurances, when asked by the APWU, that where the program required additional work hours to accomplish a task that such additional time would be counted, he said.<\/p>\n
The USPS has not provided a schedule for implementation of the program, Raymer said, but it cannot begin until at least 60 days after the union was notified.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf your local has not yet acquired the current custodial staffing package (Forms 4852, 4869 and 4839) for your installation, we encourage you to obtain them in electronic format only,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe job you protect could very well be your own!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
APWU – Feb. 27, 2014 The USPS has declared war on custodial staffing \u2014 again \u2014 reports Maintenance Craft Director Steve Raymer. Management notified the APWU on Jan. 22 of an attempt to modify the MS-47 Handbook, which establishes guidelines for housekeeping and determines the number of custodians that will be assigned to facilities. National […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6492,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apwu-news","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7093"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7095,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7093\/revisions\/7095"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}